I’ve just tried it with Incas for the first time one week before release, hoping everything would be ready, the game an update from the previous one in every way, but noo … It look worse! How did you do that? It looks exactly like War Selection (another game), it is just bland. I remember, when WarChiefs expansion came out and I was looking at buildings admiring their structure, thinking how nice they look. With Incas in DE? What is this simplicity?? Did anyone even tried? On all graphics setting it didn’t look good. And all units look the same (maybe they didn’t expect anyone using yellow color…).
And the controls. What happened there? In Age 2DE you can send units inside buildings with classic qwer asdf zxcv key system and adopting that system into Age 3DE was a great choice (in fact, it should have been in place first time around), but you created 4 rows of buttons to control for 3 rows of keys on keybord!? How did that happen??? My soldiers have zero abilities, yet the buttons for entering a building and attack move are out of ZXCV key binding area? Come oon!
And I thought sound should have been remastered … some old sound effects were replaced by worse once. Sometimes sound of something (weapon clash, or gunshot or cannon shot) are unproportionally loud. Background music was stuttering.
I want to stress again, how disappointed I am with current situation of the game. It is almost on the level of Warcraft 3 Refunded. I was expecting to waste so much time with my old buddies on this game again, but now I’m just considering refund.
The game certainly looks hasted and unfinished. A few examples:
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The game does not seem to be optimized for widescreens. However, widescreens are very common nowadays. Currently, the transition from main menu/homecity to the background picture with Morgan looks awful and rather like a placeholder. If you don’t bother adjusting the homecities to widescreens, then drive the focus away from them. Don’t show them in the main menu at all. A background picture like in AoE2 DE would be just fine and people could even mod it.
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The awful much criticized click sound during beta has not been fully removed and is still in the options menu when clicking e.g. on “Graphics options”, “Game options” etc.
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Remaining crashes and connection issues in multiplayer (though much improved compared to beta). Still no reconnect feature which was MUCH requested.
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The multiplayer menu is not very intuitive and a lot of feedback was given from my side during beta to improve it. NONE of it has been implemented despite very positive reception from other beta testers. To name the least: the chat room button is so small and hidden that of course none is gonna use the rooms. The profile page is over simplified and looks very sterile. No profile picture unlocking like in AoE2. Too much unnecessary clicking to get where u wanna be (e.g. when u want to host a game: lobby browser -> back -> host game… why not implement a “host game” button in the lobby browser itself?!) etc.
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Lots of balancing issues regarding Incas and Swedes (France as well) which will certainly affect the ranked matchmaking system at the beginning and might make it completely unusable.
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Apparently they went the cheap way and used ONE voice actor for all the Lakota/Sioux units (except for the female villager).
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They also pretty much removed the ship destruction.
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For a lot of “improved” stuff I can only say: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. There were many unnecessary changes which no player asked for and probably cost the devs a lot of time and money.
Lots of feedback from the last beta was ignored/not implemented (yet). I fear they do the same mistake of Age II DE again and bring out a buggy mess. Only that for Age III, since it is less popular, they won’t bother fixing their mess at all (hell they haven’t even fixed half the mess of Age II). And bringing out a buggy mess at release certainly won’t help in making the game more popular.
Not to mention, they just copied ESOC patch. They did absolutely ZERO balancing and changing on their end.
I am pretty sure they looked as ESOC patch and said “wow, they did all the work for us. We can just trust those changes fully without testing, release a DE, and charge everyone 30 bucks”
I see nothing wrong in that. Balancing needs a lot of time to do trial and error and find the right balance. ESOCommunity has served as a home to many such balance discussion through all these years. Even they don’t have any problem with it, so why do you think it is? They took the correct decision by adapting ESOC patch to improve the game. It not only balanced the game overall but also fixed many minor bugs. It polished the game for the betterment.
The problem I have, is that I want the community to grow, and I dont think fixing “many minor bugs” without a reconnect feature, is not enough of a change from ESOC patch to warrant people paying 30 bucks for.
Credit where it is due: 2 new civs are cool and unique. however, aoe2de got four?
Why would we not just keep playing ESOC patch. Same damn game. the value just isnt here for new players to buy it. it is just going to be old players that like the nostalgia and last for 2 months.
Relax, it’s largerly the same as for AOE 2 DE.
Connections issues? Check.
Lot’s of bugs and crashes? Check.
Complaints about sound design (gunpowder sounds)? Check.
Broken new civs? Double check.
Removed cool visual features (skeletons and decaying bodies)? Check.
U can always change hotkeys as per ur comfort
If we are making a DE then why wouldn’t we incorporate ESOC patch changes?
For me the amount of work gone into the full graphics overall is huge enough for the price. You just don’t realise how many graphics assets AoE3 has which needed working. I would like to see more new civs and content surely. And I also hope they will fix the bugs over time.
My argument is about you saying as if there is something wrong in adapting ESOC patch. Which I think is a great decision made by the dev teams.
Don’t divert from the topic.
So esoc patch was made by lots of discussion and balancing and it was very balanced , why distort already balanced patch ?
Im not trying to divert. My point was with the value, if they dont have to balance anything from ESOC patch, as they are just copy/paste. 2 new civ content, graphics, and still with no “reconnect” option for me at least, is not worth the price.
They should of had plenty of time for more content at a 30$ price point, if they didnt have to balance a damn thing. just feels like money grab to me.
just disappointed
it’s 20$ (USD), 15$ for those who already own old version(2007).
Did u even play esoc ??? Esoc don’t need to be balanced , it’s already balanced , they out a lot , really a lot of discussion , trail , testing and adjustment to make esoc balanced . I was there when balancing discussion were going on forums , it was so much hard work by experts and so many enthusiastic volunteers . I m glad they didn’t alter it , else there was risk to make game unbalanced .
Other then that they did great job to fix things that was not fixed in esoc , like the revolt and mercenaries .
And they will keep balancing them more as people will give feedback when game launches .
fair enough.
My point being, I just dont see enough value here to grow the community. Wish they put more into the package than what was mentioned.
Hoping for the best and that it takes off. But a bit pessimistic in terms of value. Wanted to see a little more content, or even QOL changes than there is going to be at release
My point being ESOC patch is a good addition as it is something created after lots of testing and adapting it is a good decision.
I would also like to have seen more civs and maps for my favorite game. Am not arguing against it.
i like the new sounds, loud that was added was necessary
This is explicitly untrue. There are a bunch of additional balance changes they made (tons affecting team-game and late-game balance), as well as the updated Politicians, updated cards, and all the new content (new civs, new cards like Grenade Launchers).
I completely disagree. Graphics are realistic. And much better than the original Ageiii. Idk how come you failed to see those changes.
- Everything is changed and ploished graphic wise
- Sound is crisp and of better quality. New soundtrack as well.
- Game is more balanced than ever. I won’t list anything you can find it out by urself.
- Pliticians, all are updated
- Flags are updated.
- Native names are now more accurate.
- Voices have been re done. So much effort has been done.
- New cards civs units.
You are comparing it with the war chiefs? Well compare it again it looks much better now. Ofcourse there are bugs and they will be addressed once the game is released.
The widescreen thing. They intentionally made the screen size same for every resolutions.
Remember age 2 De? A person playing in 4k can see more than someone playing at 720p giving them more advantage. So they made it same for every resolutions. Textures will be crisp but you will be seeing the same amount of things on the screen for every resolutions.
When they first released the expansions, they kind of forgot that upgrading cities was a game feature. To my knowledge, they never updated the expansions to include this feature. In AoEIIIDE, did they have the sense to update the expansion and newer civilization cities to be customizable?
That is wrong. When playing a match, there are no black bars on the sides and the game also isn’t stretched (because that would look ridiculous). So yes, with widescreen I can see more than somebody playing in 16:9. The game is not that competitive, that they need to take care of something like this. It’s only the main menus that look fcked up and unfinished. There are many aspects of the game that were done bland, cheap, sloppy or carelessly.